Ditching NewTeeVee for an OldTeeVee Inauguration

My name is Stacey Higginbotham, and I watched Barack Obama become the 44th President of the United States on my television. And let me assure you, I wasn’t alone. Om also ditched the newteevee experience over quality concerns, and several of my friends chose the flat screen over Facebook as well. Over at GigaOM, we wrote about problems accessing certain sites online, as users complained that ABC.com, C-SPAN and even CNN.com all went down at one point or another.

When faced with the option of missing one of the “defining moments of a generation” or powering up the boob tube, I bet those with access to a TV gave up on the web. This is sad, because, like Liz, watching my friends comment on the speech via Facebook was one of the most social experiences I’ve ever had on the social network; it made watching such a powerful moment alone in my home far less lonely. But the inauguration served as a reminder that TV has the power to bring us together in ways that the latest Internet meme still cannot. If newteevee could become as reliable (and as accessible) as my CNN broadcast, while allowing me to share the experience through the eyes of my friends and not Anderson Cooper, I’d toss my cable box in no time.